Today, Microsoft and the news site Digg.com have signed today a deal in which the Redmond giant will become the exclusive provider of display and contextual advertising on the popular news site.

In case you don’t know, Digg.com is a news site, on which the most important stories are promoted based on user votes, also known as “diggs”.

In order to display ads on Digg.com, Microsoft will use its own ad platform, called AdCenter, which is very similar to Google’s AdWords.

According to a press statement the agreement was signed for the next three years and the two companies said they will work together on future technology and advertising initiatives.

"Our collaboration with Digg is about bringing our advertising technology and sales force to one of the fastest-growing sites on the Web and a true innovator in user-generated content," said Steve Berkowitz,

senior vice president of the Online Services Group at Microsoft. "We believe advertisers will welcome Microsoft and Digg's combined strengths to forge more meaningful connections online."

Currently Digg.com has about 17 million monthly visitors and this agreement may be very important for Microsoft, who wants to promote its AdCenter initiative.

Las year, Microsoft signed a similar deal with Facebook, a web site which is now seen as the main competitor of MySpace.com, the biggest social-networking site. MySpace.com has an exclusive advertising deal with the web search giant Google.